NaNo Update: NaNo Dropout

So life happens and suddenly one finds oneself 3K behind for words. Okay, you think, I can do this, no big deal. Then it slowly piles up, 5K 7K… then you begin to sweat and panic. “I’ll type up old notes,” you say, and “a video on the blog is surely word fifty words, right? If it’s for school?” At last, over 10,000 words behind, you realize you will not catch up today. You will not catch up any day, because, you are forced to admit, the NaNo bug has won and you have a pile of crap for a manuscript. Luckily, you have something, and perhaps the novel you chose to hassle is one you’ve already got 50,000 words on. So perhaps being a NaNo drop out for the second year on a row is no big deal. Perhaps your self-esteem isn’t the size of pea and you don’t feel like the whole internet community is laughing at your pathetic word count…

Maybe it’s time we came up with a new award: a duct taped sign that has obviously seen its better days, with a little person with casts on his or her foot and arm, that arm in a sling, his or her face covered in pumps and bruises, a bandage around one eye, the sign reading “I survived NaNoWriMo… Barely.”

Proud to be a NaNo Failure!

NaNoWriMo: Five reasons why you should participate

NaNoWriMo: Five reasons why you should participate : from the Christian Science Monitor.

Don't just listen to me: here's what a top news authority says on the subject. And while we're at it:

NaNoWriMo Kickoff!

Today marks the frantic onset of National Novel Writing Month. Do you have your 1,667 words in today? Hehehe :) I sure as hell don’t.

Rather than focus on the word count, I’d rather explore the joy of writing today, especially since that’s something that’s easy for writers to lose track of in our daydreams of fame, fortune, and publication. Because that’s what it all comes down to: hands and a keyboard, or a pen or a crayon, and a drive so strong to put down word after word that it rises up and overwhelms everything else, that it’s more important than anything else, job, relationships, sleep, health. It’s easy to lose sight of having passion for the process when so many other things compete with it. We want to be good. We want to be published, to spend our days taking interviews, sipping coffee or green tea, talking about our greatness.

We want so many things.

Something we’re reminded to ask is whether we want the perceived trappings of being a writer or to actually sit down at our desks and place word after word, making a string of beads to worry and pick at later like a literary rosary. Because that is what it all comes down to: passion for stringing words together, reaching with two hands, grasping for words in the dark, to bring them to light and impale them on our beading strings.

So happy NaNo everyone. Be productive and passionate and don’t get lost in the dark.

NaNoI'mOutOfMyFreakingMind

October is nearly gone, and National Novel Writing Month, affectionately and sometimes despairingly called NaNoWriMo by those who flock to the siren call of 50,000 words in 30 days, all shiny-faced and scrubbed clean at the beginning, and hardly fit for civil company or a barn by the end. Yes, I’ve decided to NaNo a book I’ve been working on since last year. Though why, with grad school also on my plate, as well as seeking another part-time job, eludes me.

So 1667 words per day for 30 days. It’s steep, I’ll grant you. People lose their damn minds in November. The writing advice that I’m loving right now is the one-inch window Anne Lamott describes in Bird by Bird. She says to look at your story through a mental viewfinder, describing on the inch you see there. For instance, if I was working on my weird adventure historical erotica story, which is my chosen torturer for November, I’d start by trying to picture a person, or an object, or even use a line of observation or dialogue to look through the lens, then go, “well, what do I see? Okay, candelabra sitting on a damask tea towel in the middle of a brothel window. Well what do the walls look like? Is it dim? What time of day is it? Who’s around?” And before you know it I have naughty English noblemen getting spanked upstairs by a bitter French prostitute as her illegitimate child hides under the stairs. Or, equally, a beautiful young English professor on a treasure hunt following one of the greatest playwrights of Georgian England who never existed all while her mentor lays dying in a hospice. And all through a one-inch window.

So crack those knuckles, rock out on a pot of coffee, and in a candy-fueled sugar coma/frenzy, let NaNoWriMo begin Monday!

From: http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT6nNumrmhqfrsiL034GlCttUuKfO6sDB-EJH7dVUG5B51MaKw&t=1&usg=__Wfflc_ABfnvkIHZfNL7KvEeDD8g=